Roads woke before dawn feeling as though a truck had run over him during the night. Without quite getting up, he fumbled for his coat and found a cigarette. The smoke was acrid and thick, but had the required effect on his circadian rhythms: the various parts of his mind got their act together and allowed him to be him again. Still, he waited until the sun had risen before climbing out of bed. The room was stuffy and stale, and the feeble light that ventured through the blinds did little to enliven it. He took a shower, only to be irritated by the water pounding his shoulders. Although pleasantly hot, it felt wrong. Not for the first time, he wished for sonics and a thorough dermal scrub. But he was stuck on the far side of the Dissolution in a shabby remake of the twentieth century. Only a few anachronisms remained to remind him of what had once been. Anachronisms like Keith Morrow. And hot dogs. And Sundays. He'd been working a seven-day week for so long he'd quite forgotten that weekends had ever existed.
